[Avodah] R' Haim David Halevy on Shemittah

[Michael Makovi]

I just read the following passage in Rabbi Marc Angel's Rabbi Haim
David Halevy: Gentle Scholar and Courageous Thinker, pp. 216f. Rabbi
Angel notes that Rabbi Halevi thought the heter mechira to be
disingenuous, even if it did technically work. Rabbi Halevi sought a
better solution. Quote from Rabbi Angel:

Rabbi Halevy offered what he thought was a reasonable solution. Before
each sabbatical year, a panel of rabbis, agriculturalists, and
economists should meet. These experts should determine, based on the
economic conditions prevailing in Israel, what percentage of the land
needed to be cultivated in order to maintain the agricultural industry
and the national economy. If, for example, it was determined that
seventy percent of the land must be cultivated, then the Chief
Rabbinate - on an ad hoc basis - should pronounce that all farmers
could cultivate seventy percent of their fields. (There was a Talmudic
precedent for rabbinic cancellations of the rules of the sabbatical
year when dire economic conditions demanded such radical measures.
[Footnote: "Sanhedrin 26a."]) The remaining thirty percent would lay
fallow, in fulfillment of the Torah law. While this suggestion surely
was not perfect, yet it provided a compromise position: it allowed
farmers to cultivate the land needed to provide their livelihoods, and
it also left some land entirely fallow in fulfillment of Torah law.
[Footnote: "MH [Shu"t Mayyim Hayyim] 2:61. He also discusses other
issues related to the sabbatical year. See also MH 3:32."] Rabbi
Halevy's suggestion has not been adopted.

(End quote.)

Personally, the question I'd raise is: what if an individual farmer's
own personal individual economic needs were more or less than the
state's? For example, what if the state needed only 70% of its land to
be cultivated (in order to maintain the state's overall economy), but
this individual's own needs demanded 60% or 80%? But the basic
proposal sounds very intriguing and fantastic to me.

Michael Makovi

-- 
Michael Makovi
מיכאל מאקאווי
mikewinddale at gmail.com
http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com